27 December 2014

Christmas lights

The year is slowly coming to an end, asks for another summary.

As I was waking up this morning, realizing that another Christmas is over I felt a tiny need for review. As always, I've spent Christmas with my family in Poland, as usual, like whole adult life, bringing my current boyfriend with me.

Same food, same mood, same heart-warming, cosy atmosphere of love, acceptance, carelessness, taste of childhood, holiday laziness. Endless talks, laughs and catching up with our lives which continue separately.
Not a single thing about Christmas that I hate, the matter is just to spend it with the right people. The comparison with the last Christmas shows clearly what kind of right choices I've made during this whole year.*

And this was one of the best years of my entire life.
I've moved on from the toxic arrangement which was eating out my energy and happiness by letting go of some of the hopes and plans. I reorganized my life and focused on myself, what I needed so much for a long time. I got more independent, calm, confident and fulfilled than ever before. I discovered an amazing person and developed a beautiful relationship that makes sun always shine.

I restored energy I was drained of and I'm fully myself again.
I'm looking forward to the new year and all the exciting things I will do.

Love life.

Enjoy the photos and see you in a New Year!





*When in the end you discover, that you've been unfriended on Facebook, and it just makes you smile with fondness, you know that you've learned your lesson well.

8 November 2014

all my friends are dead

You know the book, maybe even better known as a meme, don't you? This one.

I feel exactly like this, seriously, with all its awkwardness, darkness and irony.

Everything started when I moved to Hamburg. Since five months my social life has been slowly, but consistently, dying.
I've been through all the stages already, got stuck on a denial a bit too long but finally successfully ended up on soothing acceptance. I'm ok. Really. But it doesn't change the fact, that my social life is at the moment.. non-existent.

Of course non of my friends is dead. They're just away, further or closer, but physically away.
Some of them are too busy with their everyday life's joys and worries to keep in touch through emails/skype/letters. Some of them never got close enough to build something solid, some bonds got very loose and now are impossible to tie again.

Even with the best friends I've ever had I'm able to meet 2-3 times a year, but even for a busy person it's way too little.
And I'm trying not to be so busy, right?

And how about here, in Hamburg? Here I have technically nobody. At least not a single person, who I would consider as someone taking part in my life. All the bigger and smaller friendships I had over this 3 years since I'm in Germany never turned into something deeper. I have no idea why and it doesn't matter since it's already a fact.

And yes. I miss having friends. I miss the time of my life in Warsaw, this last 1,5 years before I moved to Germany. Maybe I unappreciated it back then, maybe it seems so happy and joyful from the distance.
I miss going to places just to meet people, who know me, with whom I've lived my past, who I have feelings towards. I miss feeling comfortable, curious and appreciated at the same time, the lovely mix only friendship gives you.

I'm not sad, although it is pretty sad and new for me. Another life lesson to learn.
Sometimes I just wish somebody would call me and ask me out too.

But I don't give up, I search for new options, try to make new bonds and try to let go on people who obviously are not interested in me as their friend.

Well, their loss.


In the meantime I look after a wonderful, loving relationship, daydream a lot, try to sleep well, read and find healthy balance between doing and not doing things. And I still take pictures.

This is how beautiful is Hamburg in Fall.








5 November 2014

warmth



I have not much to say this time. Or rather so much to tell, but it all doesn't fit into words so well. I have bunch of pictures waiting for me to edit, as well as some stories to tell. But the words are not there.

I'm happy. As much as I've been only few times in my life. Fall goes by, my love have moved to Berlin, so we have just weekends together and I'm still more lonely than ever, my health is giving me hell. But this calm, ease and warmth I feel now wouldn't trade for anything.

I enjoy candle light, good food, reading books, learning a new language, beautiful music and movies. I enjoy every sunny day, every bike or bus ride and Fall landscapes.

I enjoy every minute together with him, as well as every hour I'm alone.

I learn not to be lonely. I learn how to make friendships again.

I enjoy learning to live in today, no matter how trivial it seems, no matter how exciting the future is.

I'm living the dream.

14 September 2014

Aftersummer

Summer is a magic time of wonders and adventure, as if anything could happen, like I'm always waiting for something to come true.
I remember spending Summers of my teenage and young adult years in a constant craving for love, passion, miracles I could think of and remember about.
Craving for something to happen with my life, that will make it worth writing a book about it. Or making a movie. And I never felt special enough in my own eyes.

But it changed and at some point things started to happen that made it worth writing about it. Or I just started to live my life this way.

This Summer was not adventurous, I was working a lot, my one and only planned trip to Czech Republic for Fluff Fest did not work out, I was in Hamburg most of the time.

But the Summer was hot, it let me sleep and swim naked, wear summer dresses and never get cold, even in the middle of the night. It let me wish upon a star, enjoy food, nature and bike, read as much as I please.
But most of all, this was a Summer of my love, our love;
trying out, getting closer, learning and teaching trust, sharing and giving and becoming better versions of us.
Without sacrificing anything, staying warm, charmed, safe and confident.

But the Summer is over, as always, too soon. I had to switch rapidly to another season, with all of it's features, although I was not ready at all.

And we are still here, stronger than ever before.

12 August 2014

There will be a way. A new chapter.

I wanted to write this post a long time ago. Or at least as soon as I moved to Hamburg. Or as soon as I fell in love with my new imperfect life.

At the end of Winter I decided to leave the house project, where I was living and working for almost 3 years. The list of reasons is long, but the most important was, that I had not enough reasons to stay. And a strong need to move on.

I found a job in my profession at the same time as I found an apartment. I re-entered a well-known world of wage work and buying my free time. It cost me a lot to admit this, but it wasn't the hardest choice I've ever made.
And I felt even some sort of relief.

Old habits die hard, they say..

The same relief I felt moving again to a big city with a big river in the middle. And I live on the "wrong" side of the river again!

I love Hamburg with all my heart, for being so spacious, busy, unable to discover, full of surprises, generous in giving me my privacy, freedom and anonymity.

I love simple joys, listening to the music on a subway on my way to work, riding a bike through summer park, having a pick-nick by the river, watching a movie in an open-air cinema, having a beer on a crowded street on a summer evening. Going or organising events.
Smell of a river breeze.

And I'm not alone in this. I have the best company I could think of. We're so beautifully, consciously together. We're heading forward to the future, just the way we wanted. Just like that.
And it works, damn*, this really works. But that's another story.

I'm just happy. Bonjour bonheur!






"There Will Be A Way"

shut your eyes,
see the future's distant shore
march ahead
more enlightened than before
and there's sure to be bumps
and distractions
but I know we'll get through
there will be me, there will be you
there will be a way
unresolved repercussions from your life
fortified with the vitriol of strife
and you can be gridlocked by predictions,
but you're wise grab the prize
then revise, realize
there will be a way
hey... ho
and I don't know where we are going
but we're here on this ride
and we'll stand side by side
all along the way
follow me to the future's distant shore
vagary needn't haunt us anymore
and now it's time to set the agenda,
learn the past, make it last
share the wealth, hold your fire,
conserve life, make it right
kill the hate, negotiate
there will be a way
there will be a way
there will be a way

10 July 2014

Big Spring European Trip: Paris

Hitchhiking in France was bearable. Nothing special and definetely nothing from this amazing feeling I had before, freedom and joy of travelling for free and meeting people on the way.
Yes, there were people and they gave us a ride, but it was cold, wet, difficult, slow and frustrating.
Nevertheless we got to Paris one evening, tired, dusty and having no place to sleep.
But it was worth it.

Paris I knew only from 19th century books, and from what I've heard from friends it's supposed to be totally overrated, loud, unfriendly and ugly.

We spend five days there, walking and biking it through.
Sure, it is loud and busy to pure madness level I cannot compare with any other city.
It's full of extreme unfriendly, hostile people and weird municipal rules. And damned expensive!

But it's full of this special kind of magic you find in old, big cities, which remember other centuries. As if the streets and walls soaked up with all the stories, emotions, sorrows and joys of many human beings, who lived, loved, created and died there over so many years.

A city so full of substance that it's like a separate world, one have to get to know from the beginning.
And absolutely charming. Not the whole city is beautiful, that's sure but there are not just pretty streets, there are whole beautiful districts, compounding in a huge, overwhelming, breath-taking picture.

People who lived there say though, that it's just a mirage, impression, a romance that turns cold, soon after you fall in love. That one can't live and be happy there.

Don't get fooled by pretty parks, flowers and trees, theaters and galleries.

Well, I enjoyed it a lot. Enjoyed our fresh relation, that was growing beautiful and fascinating under the spring trees.

If you fall in love, go to Paris.

Hitch-hiking to Germany was a nightmare. I truly gave up all the hope and sympathy for this way of transportation. Maybe I grew old, maybe people grew selfish, but it just does not work as it was before. I was making jokes that one day, in many years I will tell children, how once it was possible to catch a ride with a stranger and get wherever you wanted, totally for free. They will surely not believe me.

On our way back we visited friends in Cologne, had a lovely few days enjoying first days of a real Spring and preparing to a real, hard life back in Hamburg. We stayed together and came back so much stronger.

Maybe there is no such thing as bad luck at all?



Big Spring European Trip: Spain

Spain was kind of disappointment.

Not that I expected a lovely warm sun and mild ocean breeze in Basque Country at the end of March.. Okay, I admit. That's exactly what I expected. Well, not this time.

It was terribly cold, rain never stopped and wind was tearing our heads off.
But meeting friends, landscapes and magnificent, angry and scary, beautiful ocean made it up to us.
Spain still has one more chance to show it's nicest side.

From the French border we took off in a Czech truck with a nice driver.


Big Spring European Trip: Portugal


As usual, I'm sorry for being silent for so long. The life has its ways and rules, I had to bring some order into it and it took me a while.
A lot happened within all these months, not all I will recall. What's important, is some kind of magic chain of coincidences, that seem to be happening to me, bringing up similar situations, dates and places from the past. And millions of memories.
And hopes. And dreams.

So, that trip should be called BIG SPRING NEW-LOVE-SEE-HOW-WE-GET-TOGETHER EUROPEAN TRIP. But the love was not yet love back then. It doesn't matter now anyway. So:

We decided to take a trip before we both find a job and run out of time or run out of money on the first place. A bit crazy, concerning the fact that I was without job and flat, knowing that after we come back I have to fix everything ASAP.

We were supposed to meet some friends in San Sebastián, Spain, but since the only cheap flights we found were to Porto, Portugal, the plan was to spend a few days there and hitch-hike back visiting Spain, Paris and Cologne on the way.

This is the same route I made with one of my best friends in Fall four years ago, going from Cologne, Bruxelles and hitch-hiking further down South to.. Porto, where she used to live.
Can't even tell how much I've learned during this 1,5 months then, about myself, world and making choices and making friends.

So I was about to do the same with my fresh new relationship. In the middle of March!
Brave.

It was also my first flight, nice experience. We got to Porto almost missing the airport bus in Hamburg, him being totally ill and me awaiting a great adventure and wave of memories.
Porto did not surprise me though, I've seen a lot during these years and the city, however beautiful, was just a memory.
We've been welcomed by the friends of a friends in their house with a roof-garden in a ruined building, had a nice day on a beach, I finally could eat as much of baked chestnuts as I wanted (food in Portugal is way cheaper than in Germany) and we camped in a lovely fairy-tale bushes in the middle of the city.
We didn't hitch-hike anywhere. After 1,5 days of standing in one spot we gave up and took a train straight to Spain.